Republished by the New Jersey Frontier Guard, 1996
THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR
(1754-1763)by Nathaniel Hale
Exerpted from The American Colonial Wars: A Concise History 1607-1775, by Nathaniel Hale (General Society of Colonial Wars, 1971, 1972) pp. 60-91
Prelude
The Frenchmen who followed the paths blazed up the St. Lawrence valley by Samuel de Champlain in the 17th century had extended those paths deeper and deeper into the wilderness. Fur traders, explorers, soldiers, and Catholic priests who not infrequently bent to the paddles for discovery entirely on their own, all took part in this invasion of the continent. However, the Frenchmen who came to America were not colonizers - not true empire builders like the English. In the main they were adventurers; and there were not many of them, comparatively speaking. But they had grand plans, and they knew how to strike bargains and make treaties with the Indians. So, although their lines of communications were much too thinly held, they kept pushing their birch-bark canoes farther and farther inland.
After the English became entrenched on Hudson Bay in 1670, furs were diverted to them that otherwise would have been collected by the French. Repeated attacks were made on the English installations about the bay. But except for Iberville's temporary success during King William's War, these attacks were futile, and by the Treaty of Ryswick the domination of England over that area became permanent.
Meanwhile, the adventurous French were spurred on by their discovery of the upper Mississippi River. In 1673, a fur trader named Louis Joliet and a Jesuit priest, Father Jacques Marquette, descended the Mississippi far enough to learn that it flowed into the Gulf of Mexico. Whereupon the French planned an inland empire of trading citadels stretching from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, through the Great Lakes and the Mississippi valley, to the Gulf of Mexico. With two strategic ports of entry to the continent, at the distantly separated mouths of the St. Lawrence and Mississippi Rivers, the English Colonies would be completely encircled - pinned down on the coast, possibly eliminated!
By 1699 the French had planted a colony on Biloxi Bay in what is now Mississippi, and in another three years a strongly palisaded fort was built close by on the Gulf of Mexico at Mobile, to become the capital of Louisiana. French citadels quickly dotted the length of the Mississippi valley, from New Orleans northward. In 1701 a trading post was fortified at Detroit, on the strait connecting Lake Erie and Lake Huron. This brought about such a concentration of Indian commerce and military power in those parts that within a few years portages between streams feeding western Lake Erie and the Ohio River could be effected with relative safety from Iroquois attack.
When French fur traders began dipping their paddles in the Ohio River, thousands of square miles of territory were added to France's midcontinent conquest. Not only had they completely encircled the English Colonies strung out along the Atlantic seaboard, they had begun to spread their occupation eastward toward the Appalachian Mountains, behind which they hoped to contain the English permanently.
By the turn of the century, however, English traders from New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia were working the Appalachian passes for beaver and otter. In another twenty years many were squeezing through the more northerly gaps into the valley of the Ohio. The pressure of immigrant families upon the land east of the mountains then commenced in earnest. Palatine farmers flowed up the valley of the Mohawk in great numbers, and land-hungry Ulster Scots scrambled through the Susquehanna valley and up the Shenandoah toward the more southerly passes.
This pressure was of course first felt by the Indians. However, on the outbreak of war in 1744 between England and France, the Iroquois were cajoled into granting the English practically all the Ohio valley and sealing the bargain with an alliance to help protect the property against the French who were already there. Meeting with an Iroquois delegation around the council fire at Lancaster in Pennsylvania, commissioners from the Colonies successfully prepared the way for the Ohio Company, a great trading and land development enterprise which was to act as a vehicle in establishing England's claim west of the mountains.
The threat was too obvious to be ignored by the French. They expedited plans to push the English back over the mountains. Already, a French army detachment, using a traders' portage between the eastern end of Lake Erie and Lake Chataugua, had gone down to the Ohio via the Allegheny River, planting lead plates along both streams as a warning to trespassers; while French-inspired and French-led Indian raids had been taking the scalps of English traders and their native allies in the Ohio country. Now, in 1753, a French army of 1000 men headed down the Allegheny from Canada, to build a line of forts along the line of the previously planted lead plates.
Forts were built at present-day Erie on the lake and at the head of French Creek to secure the portage, while an advance party took over an English trading post at Venango, the future site of Franklin, Pennsylvania. Then the French troops, bogged down with sickness, dug in for the winter, and that is where Major George Washington found them when he carried a message from the Governor of Virginia suggesting that they retire promptly to New France. The Frenchmen at Venango replied stiffly that they had no intention of doing so. Washington pressed on through the snow to see the Commander of the expedition, Legardeur de St. Pierre, at Fort Le Boeuf on French Creek. The chevalier received the message with courtesy, but replied in writing to the Governor of Virginia with defiance. Washington returned to Williamsburg, and in the spring the French expedition resumed its march, down the Allegheny, to the strategic forks of the Ohio. There the French reduced an English fort being constructed by the Virginians on the present site of Pittsburgh, and began building in its place an impressive French citadel called Fort Duquesne.
Surrender of Fort Necessity (1754) In 1754 several companies of militia, led by Colonel Joshua Fry, with Lt. Colonel George Washington second in command, advanced on the fort at the forks of the Ohio, which was commanded by Captain Claude Pecaudy de Contrecoeur. But they were much too late. The French sortied under Coulon de Villiers, Sieur de Jumonville, and skirmished. Jumonville was killed. Washington, who was 1n command following Fry's accidental death, was forced to content himself with palisading a defensive position along the road at Great Meadows in present-day Pennsylvania. There at Fort Necessity, as he called it, with 400 men he warded off as best he could the large number of French troops led by Jumonville's brother, Louis Coulon de Villiers, who came out to engage him. Following a siege by some 800 to 900 French and Indians, and with battle casualties of 100, he surrendered with the provision that his force could leave the fort unmolested. When Washington dejectedly led his militia back over the mountains, the French had succeeded in their purpose-the English were out of the Ohio valley.
However, the American phase of the Seven Years' War had commenced-two years before it was officially declared in Europe. The critical contest known on this continent as the French and Indian War was under way. The following year, 1755, General Edward Braddock arrived in Virginia with two regiments of British regulars to direct the campaign. At a conference he held with the Colonial Governors at Alexandria plans were formulated for a campaign which would consist of four widely separated actions: Braddock himself would move against Fort Duquesne with his two regiments along Colonel Washington's route up the Potomac via Fort Cumberland; a Colonial column would advance up the Mohawk valley against the French citadels on Lake Ontario; another was to move up the Hudson via Lake George to attack Crown Point on Lake Champlain; and a fourth expedition out of Boston was to re-establish British authority about the Bay of Fundy, especially in Nova Scotia (Acadia) where French troops from Louisbourg were infiltrating and fortifying works.
The Battle of Monongahela (1755) General Braddock complemented each of his understrength regiments with 200 provincial recruits, and proceeded to train them according to the British system of close-order fighting, casting aside much of the Colonials' advice about forest fighting in America. Encumbered by useless baggage, he built roads for his wagons as he slowly advanced from Fort Cumberland to within eight miles of Fort Duquesne, giving the French commander, Captain de Contrecoeur, plenty of time to gather reinforcements. This the Frenchman did, to a total of 1,600 men, half of them Indians.
At the Battle of Monongahela the British regulars panicked in the face of fire from unseen enemies. It began with a meeting engagement between 250 English in an advance party led by Lt. Col. Thomas Gage and some 85o French and Indians commanded by Captain Daniel Hyacinthe de Beaujeu. The latter was killed and the French command succeeded to Captain Jean Dumas. The entire forward echelon of 1,450 English troops became involved in this action, and some 900 were killed or wounded, mostly from ambuscade in the confusion of the rout that followed. Braddock himself was mortally wounded and died during the retreat. The survivors fell back on the rear echelon which was led by Colonel Thomas Dunbar, second in command. He continued the retreat to Fort Cumberland, and there made plans for the immediate withdrawal of his two regiments to Philadelphia.
Colonel Washington, who served as one of Braddock's aides on the expedition, distinguished himself by his courage at Monongahela as two horses were shot from under him. The Virginians fought with cool steadiness in contrast to the demoralized British regulars. Hostile Indians were exuberant over the French victory. Believing the French would win the war, they began savage raids against the English along a four-hundred-mile frontier. Colonel Washington did what he could to defend the settlements with conscripted provincials after its abandonment by Dunbar, a line of forts and blockhouses being built as outposts in the back country.
Expedition to Lake Ontario (1755) Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts led the expedition to Lake Ontario from Albany in 1755. French Fort Niagara at the western end of Lake Ontario was his initial objective. He had about 2,000 men altogether, two regiments raised in the Colonies on the British establishment and the New Jersey provincials. However, on reaching English Fort Oswego, which was at the eastern end of the lake, he found it in a very weakened condition, and he became fearful that the French might come down from Fort Frontenac and cut his line of communications.
After reinforcing Oswego, which he considered essential to any future operations against Forts Niagara and Frontenac, he made arrangements for its repair and strengthening during the winter, and the construction of a twin fort east of the mouth of the Ontario River. Then he withdrew to Albany, made plans for the provisioning of Oswego, and returned to Boston. Having succeeded Braddock as commander-in-chief, he then mapped bold new plans for more effective offensives against the French. However, he was unable to get the necessary cooperation from the other Colonies.
Battle of Lake George (1755) General William Johnson of New York, a fur trader who was very influential with the Mohawk Indians, commanded the 1755 expedition against Crown Point. This French post at the southern end of Lake Champlain had been fortified some years earlier and was in dangerous proximity to English settlements in New York. After building Fort Lyman (later called Fort Edward) to secure the portage between Lake George and the upper Hudson River, Johnson learned that a large French army was concentrating at Crown Point. He advanced to the head of Lake George with a force of 3,000 provincials and 250 Mohawk Indians where he went into camp.
General Ludwig August Dieskau, a German baron in the French service and the French commander at Crown Point, soon moved south with a task force of 250 French regulars, 800 Canadian militia and 700 Indians to surprise Fort Lyman. The Indians included some Iroquois tribesmen, many of whom were now defecting to the French. General Johnson sent a detachment of 1,000 men including his 250 Mohawks to the fort's relief when he heard of the coming raid. Chief Hendrick of the Mohawks had counselled his friend Johnson against an original intention to split this detachment into three groups. It is well that he did, for Dieskau turned from Fort Lyman and ambushed the English relief force. Both its commanding officer, Colonel Ephraim Williams of Massachusetts, and Chief Hendrick were killed. Lt. Colonel Nathan Whiting of Connecticut, who succeeded to command, saved the greater part of the detachment in a skillfully conducted retreat to Johnson's camp, which was now hastily barricaded for defense, with 18- and 32-pounders in position.
The Canadian militia and their Indian allies did not cooperate in the attack on Johnson. Both were fearful of the English cannon fire, and the Iroquois contingents were hesitant about attacking their Mohawk kinsmen. The French regulars were readily repulsed in two assaults. The provincials then leaped over their barricades and counterattacked. Dieskau was wounded and captured. Johnson himself was wounded early in the fight, and the command devolved upon his second-in-command, General Phineas Lyman of Connecticut.
Detachments of English harassed the French as they retired, killing many in an ambuscade at "Bloody Pond."
Johnson failed to follow up his success by moving against a new French outpost, Ticonderoga, on the short carry between Lake Champlain and Lake George. Instead, he built Fort William Henry of timber and earthworks on the site of his camp, garrisoned it with 600 troops, and disbanded the remainder. But the establishment of Forts Edward and William Henry advanced the British frontier northward, to give better protection to the Hudson valley.
The Nova Scotia Campaign (1755) Early in 1755 some 2,000 New Englanders under Colonel John Winslow of Massachusetts joined with British regulars commanded by Colonel Robert Monckton at Boston for the campaign in Nova Scotia. By June the expedition was operating in the Bay of Fundy, where Governor Charles Lawrence with three British regiments was having difficulty maintaining his position. The French forts at Beausejour and Gaspereau were taken with ease. Beausejour was well fortified, but its commandant, Du Chambon de Vergor, wilted as the English pressed the siege with cannon in well-ordered parallels, with the result that resistance was nominal. All the French troops occupying Acadia illegally were permitted to retire back to Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island.
The local population of Acadia was forcibly deported to prevent them from lending any assistance to the French garrison at Louisbourg. The Acadians were relocated throughout the English Colonies and elsewhere; some went to Prince Edward Island, some to Quebec, and some to far-off New Orleans. British Port Royal was reinforced, and the possession of Nova Scotia was maintained for the remainder of the war by the three British regiments.
The Fall of Oswego (1756) In May of 1756 England declared war on France, and the Seven Years' War formally began, with England and Prussia pitted against the other European countries. England was faced with defending her valuable Colonial possessions in America, in fact, with mounting a more effective offensive against the French there if English imperial ambitions on the American continent were not to be thwarted. Parliament therefore resolved to prosecute the war more actively in the American theatre. John Campbell, Earl of Loudoun, was selected as Commander-in-Chief, with General James Abercromby as his second-in-command.
Meanwhile, a professional French soldier, Louis Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm, had been dispatched to command the military forces under Pierre Francois de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil, the Governor General of New France. Montcalm immediately launched and led an expedition of 3,000 men across Lake Ontario against Oswego. These were regulars in the main, but there were coureurs des bois and 250 Indians. With 50 cannon, he laid siege to the rude works of the new English fort east of the Oswego River. It was abandoned after three days by its commander, Colonel James F. Mercer, who then concentrated all his defense at old Fort Oswego, with its stone redoubt, on the left bank of the river. Taking possession of the opposite heights, Montcalm raked the fort with his cannon, killing Colonel Mercer and 8o others in the bombardment. When the walls were breached, the garrison of 1,600 men surrendered before an assault was made. But the Indians scalped the sick and wounded and killed many others. Montcalm razed both forts and took his remaining prisoners and spoils of war to Canada.
Rogers' Rangers (1756-1759) During the remainder of 1756, and for several years afterward, much of the skirmishing on the borders consisted of fierce French and Indian raids and counterraids by a corps of Rangers, a new force of irregulars trained in Indian fighting. A battalion of these Rangers organized by Major Robert Rogers of New Hampshire did notable service, and Rogers' Rangers in small bands performed many daring and heroic services. Major Rogers was defeated by the French in 1758 when, with 180 men, he was set upon by an overwhelming force of Indians and French at Rogers' Rock on Lake George. In the savage "Battle on Snowshoes" which followed he lost 124 of his men. The next year, starting out from Crown Point with a company of 200 men, Rogers performed a remarkably daring feat in reaching and destroying St. Francis, an Indian stronghold on the St. Lawrence River where many of the raids against the Colonies had originated. But only a handful of gaunt survivors returned, most of those who were not killed having starved to death during a frightful withdrawal to the English settlements.
Attack Repulsed at Fort William Henry (1757) In March of 1757 the Sieur de Rigaud de Vaudreuil, a brother of the Governor General, with a picked force of 1,500 French regulars, Canadians and Indians, advanced on Fort William Henry from Canada. After a brief rest at Ticonderoga, they came over the ice of Lake St. George to take the English fort by surprise. But the small garrison of 350 British troops and Rangers, under the command of Major William Eyre, was alerted in time. During three days of siege the French managed to burn some storehouses and vessels which were frozen in the ice. Then they were finally driven off in a heavy snowstorm by English cannon fire.
The Fall of Fort William Henry (1757) Later in the spring Loudoun made a major offensive move against the French. To capture Louisbourg he assembled British ships and troops at New York, together with 6,000 provincials, and sailed for Halifax to join with a powerful British fleet and some 5,000 grenadiers waiting there. But he abandoned the entire enterprise when he arrived in Halifax and learned that a French fleet with strong reinforcements had reached Louisbourg ahead of him. In the meantime, with half the American effectives out of the country, Montcalm initiated a quick offensive in New York.
With an army of 5,500 regulars and militia, and 1,600 Indians, Montcalm joined with his second-in-command, Brigadier Gaston Francois Levis, who had 600 additional Indian allies led by Abbe Picquet and other priests at the foot of Lake George. This total force descended on Fort William Henry, then commanded by Colonel George Munro with 2,200 men. Munro held the timbered fort and an entrenched camp outside the walls with light guns and small arms against heavy artillery fire from two batteries of mortars and cannon, 12- and 18-pounders. He hoped that General Daniel Webb with 4,000 men at Fort Edward some fourteen miles away would move to his relief. But Webb remained inactive, although he knew of the French advance and the investment of Fort William Henry. He felt that Munro's position was untenable and that Fort Edward, as the last defense of the Hudson valley, should not be weakened.
After five days of progressive siege, with smallpox in the fort and with half of his own guns out of service, Munro capitulated with honors of war, pledging that the garrison would not serve against the French for eighteen months. Montcalm's Indian chiefs participated in the terms of the capitulation. After the French had taken possession of the fort and the English had laid down their arms, the Indians butchered nearly a hundred of the sick and wounded. Then they fell upon a column including women and children of the fort under French escort. There was a terrible massacre. Many of the English escaped through the woods to Fort Edward, but a large number were tomahawked and scalped before Montcalm regained control of the savages. Fort Edward was further reinforced by militia from Massachusetts and Connecticut, and the French withdrew to Ticonderoga after razing Fort William Henry.
Second Capture of Louisbourg (1758) In 1757 a change of ministry took place in England. The forceful William Pitt, who became Secretary of State, inherited the worldwide contest between England and France, which had not been going too well for the British, even though they had the great advantage of military ascendancy on the seas. He felt that the conquest of New France in America was realizable and would end the war.
Therefore, in the important American theatre, Pitt at once took steps to tighten the naval blockade against French Canada, to better support the provincial forces serving the Crown, and to greatly augment British regular forces in the Colonies. Plans for 1758 called for three major offensives: to capture Louisbourg and then move against Quebec; to advance from Albany northward via the usual water route against French Canada and westward up the Mohawk valley against Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario; and to capture Fort Duquesne in the Ohio valley.
To implement these plans, Pitt called on the Northern Colonies to raise 20,000 men, most of whom were assembled with some promptness in New York. The Southern Colonies raised 5,000 for the expedition planned against Fort Duquesne. For the accomplishment of the objectives for 1758 the professional and provincial military manpower was overwhelmingly favorable to the British as opposed to the French.
The English expedition against Louisbourg in 1758 consisted of about 10,000 British troops, including some few Rangers and other Colonials, under the command of Sir Jeffrey Amherst. He was supported by 37 warships in a fleet commanded by Admiral Edward Boscawen. Governor de Drucour, French commander of the great fortress, had 3,000 regulars, 1,500 militia and 500 Indian allies. He could depend on 12 French warships in harbor and 3,000 sailors.
Landings at three points on Gabarus Bay were hotly resisted by the French. But, with great daring and heavy losses General James Wolfe, one of Amherst's subordinate commanders, got his men ashore. Most of the French retired behind the fort's ramparts. While the English began their investment, the French sallied several times to engage in fierce hand-to-hand combat, and they erected a battery at Black Cape, just south of the main fort. But, as in the former siege of Louisbourg, the Royal Battery was abandoned to the English who also captured Lighthouse Point. This time, however, the English were able to pound into silence the Island Battery in the mouth of the harbor, giving them a decisive advantage.
Meanwhile, the French lost most of their fleet in the harbor to heavy British bombing. One ship succeeded in slipping past the blockade and eventually reached France. One of two remaining, the ~6-gun Prudent, was burned by 600 English sailors who rowed into the harbor quietly by boat during the night. The other, the 60-gun Bienfaisant, was captured by the same crew and towed off in triumph.
After nearly eight weeks of cannonading, the walls of the great fort had begun to crumble and the English parallels were close enough for assault. Under the rules of war the Chevalier de Drucour knew no quarter would be given if the fort had to be stormed after its walls had been breached. His wife was among the women who had aided in the defense. He reluctantly surrendered. Casualties had devastated his forces, 40 of his 53 guns had been silenced, and the town of Louisbourg as well as the citadel itself had been gutted by fire.
The gate to Quebec was open once more to the English. However, it was late in the season, and the great army out of Albany had been repulsed in a defeat involving the loss of its best troops. Amherst therefore abandoned his proposed attack on Quebec, and William Pitt ordered the Louisbourg fortress leveled to the ground.
Defeat at Ticonderoga (1758) General James Abercromby assembled a magnificent army at the head of Lake George in the midsummer of 1758. His immediate objective was Fort Carillon at Ticonderoga, the southernmost salient of the French installations along the line of Lake Champlain, and then he would take Crown Point. With him were over 6,000 British troops, a contingent of Indian allies, and some 7,000 men from New England, New York and New Jersey. These troops he transported down the lake in 800 flat-bottomed bateaux and 90 whaleboats, together with supplies and cannon on heavy rafts. At Ticonderoga, when the English army arrived, General Montcalm had about 3,500 men altogether, with whom he hoped to delay the British advance northward.
In an initial skirmish in the woods following the English landings, George Augustus, Lord Howe, who was Abercromby's second-in-command, was killed. This had a serious effect on morale as General Howe was a good soldier and very popular, particularly with the provincials whose fighting techniques he had adopted, whereas Abercromby was unyielding in his contempt for American military methods and advice. While Abercromby hesitated following the skirmish, Montcalm completed some rough breastworks on a hill west of the fort and arranged a thick abattis of tangled and sharpened tree branches on its defensive slopes. He was also reinforced by 400 regulars who arrived under the command of the Chevalier de Levis.
Ignoring American advice, the British commander decided to advance without artillery against these works and have his regulars take them by storm with bayonets. Repeated charges were made, as regiments became entangled in the tree branches and were slaughtered by French fire from nine-foot embankments above them. During several hours of valiant charges 1,600 English, most all of them regulars, were killed or wounded. Over half the troops of one Highlander Regiment, the Black Watch, were lost in these charges. Montcalm lost only 400 men altogether. Abercromby, believing the French were about to be heavily reinforced, suddenly retreated in panic to the head of Lake George, where his army went into camp while his wounded were cared for at Fort Edward.
Capture of Fort Frontenac (1758) Following the Ticonderoga defeat in 1758, General Abercromby authorized the previously planned expedition against Fort Frontenac with a detachment of his army under the command of Colonel John Bradstreet. Proceeding from Fort Stanwix, then being built at the head of the Mohawk River, Bradstreet made the portage to Lake Oneida with over 200 bateaux and whaleboats. His army of 3,000 men then dropped down the' river to Oswego with their cannon and howitzers. From there Bradstreet swiftly launched his men, troops and guns over Lake Ontario and attacked Fort Frontenac.
The Frontenac works had been well fortified with defensive artillery, but there were not enough soldiers to mount the guns. Even the lake flotilla of gunboats in the harbor, though well-gunned, was shorthanded. Bradstreet's cannon soon breached the thin stone walls of the fort. Its 150 defenders under Captain de Noyan surrendered to avoid assault.
Nine French vessels, the largest carrying 24 guns, were captured by the English at Frontenac, and large quantities of furs, stores and provisions were taken. The French ships were used for transporting the spoils across the lake and then they were burned. The fort itself was destroyed, thus cutting the French line of communications westward and making more difficult the transportation of supplies southward to Fort Duquesne at the forks of the Ohio River. Strategically, the destruction of Fort Frontenac and the flotilla of gunboats on the lake was of great importance as it hastened the evacuation of Fort Duquesne and made all of the Ohio country vulnerable to English conquest.
Capture of Fort Duquesne (1758) General John Forbes with an army of some 6,000 men advanced on Fort Duquesne in the fall of 1758 from Raystown, now Bedford, Pennsylvania. A Swiss soldier of fortune, Colonel Henry Bouquet of the Royal Americans, was his second-in-command. He was the leader of 1,200 Highlanders and Royal Americans, 350 other regulars, and a body of Cherokee Indians. There were 2,700 Pennsylvanians, some Marylanders and Carolinians, and 1,600 Virginians including a regiment commanded by Colonel George Washington. The main body of this force cut a road straight west over the mountains, building forts for leapfrogging in safety as it slowly advanced on Fort Duquesne. However, Forbes appears to have appreciated the advantages of Ranger and light infantry tactics, and to have adopted many of them.
In an early skirmish 750 Provincials and Highlanders led by Major James Grant were set upon by French and Indians from the fort who killed 300 of them in the dense woods and tortured others to death on the parade ground of Fort Duquesne. However, Captain de Ligneris, the French commandant, had less than 400 troops and no Indian allies when Forbes' main body came within striking distance. With winter approaching and no hope of supplies from the north, he slipped away on the river with his troops. The English marched into a deserted citadel. Fort Duquesne at once be- came British Fort Pitt, and the English were back in the Ohio country-to stay.
Capture of Fort Niagara (1759) Late in 1758 Sir Jeffrey Amherst was given command of all the British forces in America. During the winter he planned the conquest of Canada with some foresight and with much more consideration for better relations with the Colonial governments and their provincial troops. This was in striking contrast to methods employed by most of his predecessors. Also on the side of the English was widespread corruption in the French administration of Canada under the incompetent and arrogant Governor General, the Marquis de Vaudreuil. He and his grasping favorites did more to hamstring the military efforts of the earnest young Montcalm than did the vast numerical superiority of British manpower.
The plan for 1759 involved the classic two-pronged land and sea thrust against Quebec and Montreal, and an expedition to reoccupy Oswego and capture Fort Niagara on the western end of Lake Ontario. To lead the latter expedition General John Prideaux was chosen, with provincial General Sir William Johnson as a civilian aide. The total force, which assembled at Oswego, consisted of 2,200 troops and 600 Indians. From there it was transported, along with artillery, over the lake to a landing about four miles east of Fort Niagara, where it was joined by an additional 300 Indians. Captain Francois Pouchot, the French Commandant at the timbered fort, had about 500 men and two new gunboats mounting I 2-pound cannon.
Captain Pouchot refused to surrender, and siege operations began. There was very active cannonading on both sides. General Prideaux was killed, and Johnson took command by right of his British Army commission as a colonel, pressing the siege vigorously. After twelve days, a force of 1,600 French and Indians from the Ohio country came to the relief of the fort. But it was cut to pieces by a force of 1,200 English and Iroquois led by Colonel Eyre Massy at Bloody Run. French casualties in this encounter ran to possibly 500. Pouchot surrendered the following day, his garrison becoming prisoners of war.
The capture of Fort Niagara signalled the complete loss of French control of the lakes and their trade routes west. It was a successful flanking movement by the English of no small importance to their current operations on the continent. The westernmost French military post, before Detroit, was now the fort at the militant Abbe' Piquet's mission, La Presentation, on the St. Lawrence near Montreal.
Capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point (1759) General Amherst commanded the land expedition northward toward the St. Lawrence valley in 1759. With over 8,000 men, half regular and half Colonials, he moved over Lake George and advanced on Ticonderoga. Fort Carillon there was commanded at the time by the Chevalier de Bourlamaque with 2,300 men. General Montcalm was at Quebec preparing its defense.
After a few skirmishes the French withdrew into their stone-faced fort. They made a show of resistance, in a delaying action as it turned out, while Amherst methodically moved his cannon into position. Then, after four days of lobbing heavy mortar shells at the slow-moving British, they suddenly blew up the magazine and abandoned the works. Amherst now mounted an attack on Fort St. Frederic at Crown Point, but before he was ready that fort had also been abandoned. Bourlamaque had withdrawn all his forces to the northern end of Lake Champlain. He dug in at Isle-aux-Noix, commanding the entrance to the Richelieu River in the St. Lawrence valley.
The British were held up at Crown Point by several French gunboats armed with as many as twenty guns each, so here Amherst halted for the winter. He built Fort Amherst, as well as a flotilla of gunboats with which he gained control of Lake Champlain. His advance northward had been slow, but it had been inexorable, and at small cost in casualties. The southernmost French salient was now only a few miles from the St. Lawrence on the Richelieu.
The Capture of Quebec (1759) In 1759 Sir Charles Saunders led a vast and powerful armada of warships and transports up the St. Lawrence River for the siege of Quebec, on its rocky 200-foot eminence commanding the river. His crews alone consisted of thousands of men, some of whom were American seamen. In June he landed Major General James Wolfe with 9,000 troops on the Island of Orleans, five miles below Quebec. About 700 of these troops were American Rangers. General Montcalm occupied the Heights of Montmorency and other positions on the north bank of the St. Lawrence guarding the land approach to Quebec with 14,000 troops. Of these about 4,000 were regulars, compared to Wolfe's 8,000 or more. Montcalm hoped to hold his positions until the approach of winter which would force the British fleet and the army it supported out of the St. Lawrence.
From Quebec the French sent fire ships and fire rafts down the river to burn the British fleet, but the operation failed. Wolfe failed, in turn, to take the Montmorency works by assault, his losses being very heavy, especially among his Royal American troops. Whereupon he shifted some of his forces under Brigadier James Murray upstream above Quebec. Murray was met by mobile covering forces totalling 3,000 troops, commanded by Colonel Louis Antoine de Bougainville, and neutralized. Then, in a surprise night maneuver in mid-September, Wolfe led a landing party that scaled the heights of Quebec. The next morning he had 4,500 troops drawn up on the Plains of Abraham facing 3,000 of Montcalm's regulars and about 1,500 Canadians and Indians.
The short battle which followed was in traditional European style. Massed English small arms fire shattered close-order French attacks. Montcalm's Indians and Canadians took small part. French casualties were twice those of the British, some 1,400 against 700, and there was little quarter given. Both Montcalm and Wolfe were mortally wounded, Wolfe dying on the field. His second-in-command, Brigadier Robert Monckton, was badly wounded, and Brigadier George Townshend succeeded. The French retreated in disorder to the Quebec fort. However, the victorious English had to halt their pursuit in order to check late-arriving French forces in their rear under Bougainville. But Quebec fell within the week, for Governor General Vaudreuil became panic-stricken and fled upstream with the major part of the French military establishment.
Through the winter there was constant skirmishing, and in the spring of 1760 Montcalm's military successor, the Chevalier de Levis, marched on Quebec from Montreal with 8,500 men. He was accompanied by two frigates in the river, as well as several transports for his supplies. General James Murray, Wolfe's successor after Townshend returned to England with the fleet, came out to meet him on the Plains. He had been able to raise less than 4,000 effectives. On the sick list at the fort were 2,300 men.
At the bloody Battle of Sainte-Foy, fought on both sides by troops weakened by a winter of sickness, the British lost a third of their number. French casualties were less, about 800. Murray, trapped into an untenable position, was forced to abandon all of his artillery and beat a hasty retreat to the Quebec fort. General Levis at once began an investment, moving up his cannon and digging his parallels. But the arrival of a British fleet and the clearing of the upper channel for English transport quickly brought about a French withdrawal to Montreal for a last stand.
French Capitulation at Montreal (1760) In the summer of 1760 General Amherst advanced on Montreal via Lake Ontario and down the St. Lawrence with 10,000 men. The remainder of his force, 3,400 troops under General William Haviland at Crown Point, moved down Lake Champlain, outflanked the French forces under Bougainville who was then at Isle-aux-Noix, and ascended the St. Lawrence. Murray himself advanced on Montreal from Quebec with 2,450 troops. All three columns converged as planned at this last French stronghold early in September. The French forces were hopelessly outnumbered on land. They now had little naval protection in the river, and they had no route of escape. Vaudreuil promptly surrendered, and French Canada thereupon became a British Colony.
The Capture of Havana (1762) The capitulation of Quebec and Montreal was the object of great rejoicing in the American Colonies, particularly in New England and New York which could now rest easy from constant fear of sudden and barbarous French raids on defenseless settlements. But the war was not quite over for the Americans. Spain had joined in an alliance with France, and in 1762 England declared war on Spain. A great expedition under Lord Albemarle then set out to capture Havana in Cuba, and 2,300 American provincials were to participate in the operation.
In June, Admiral Sir George Pocock bottled up a Spanish fleet in the harbor at Havana and landed Lord Albemarle's British army six miles east of Moro Castle which guarded the northern shore of the harbor entrance. The army invested the fort and a long and bitter siege began, with the Spaniards defending their works courageously. Meanwhile fever wreaked havoc among the British, many more dying from sickness than from enemy fire.
At the end of July the arrival of the American contingent greatly improved morale, and three days later the fort was stormed successfully following a mining operation beneath one of its bastions. The fort's gallant commanding officer, Luis de Velasco, was wounded. American troops in this action, commanded by Colonel Phineas Lyman, came from New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Some were from the Southern Colonies. Lieutenant Colonel Israel Putnam was second in command of the Americans.
Albemarle now pressed the bombardment of Fort Puntal on the south side of the harbor, and soon silenced its guns. Whereupon the Spanish Governor surrendered Havana. British losses had been 1,000 killed and wounded, but before the army left Cuba 5,000 had died of fever. A third of the American provincials died. The victory was demoralizing to Spain. It had lost a third of its navy. The English acquired huge spoils, but the campaign had been very costly in men.
The war was now over in America, but not in Europe--not until the Treaty of Paris in 1763. France then formally ceded Canada and all her territory east of the Mississippi River to Great Britain, except for one small plot encompassing New Orleans. Louis XV had secretly ceded this and all of Louisiana west of the river in 1762 to his cousin, the King of Spain. Florida was also ceded to the British, by Spain in return for Cuba, the Philippines, and other islands which had been surrendered during the war.
The English flanks in America no longer needed protection, and the western lands were open for occupation. Of course, there was the Royal Proclamation of 1763 which prohibited the extension of settlement beyond the headwaters of rivers that flowed into the Atlantic, but the Colonials paid little heed to this edict. There was only one obstacle as far as they were concerned: the Indians.
| Republished by the New Jersey Frontier Guard, 1996 |